Long Game 77: A Political Trap

[StrikerEZ]

38 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

and of course @StrikerEZ and @Young Bard, the dedicated and amazing GMs. Do run this again, and again

Oh yeah, I’m definitely running this as many times as I can milk it for.  It’s too good of a rule set to pass up running it as many times as I can. Hopefully I can get LG88 next time to keep the pattern going.

33 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

 

*Realizes he missed the last hoorah in the Elim doc.*

... oh well.

 

 

Yeah, I’m sorry about that man :/

25 minutes ago, Biplet said:

Let me just put it out there: I JUST turned in my final exam and final project for Spanish. On the same day this game ended I am now DONE WITH MY SPANISH 2 SUMMER CLASS

HECC YEAH SO PROUD

[Mat]

38 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

AraMat?

I think in the Kandra doc I mused about this... settled on AraRiice, I think  AraRaash admittedly has a better ring to it.

3 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Oh yeah, I’m definitely running this as many times as I can milk it for.  It’s too good of a rule set to pass up running it as many times as I can. Hopefully I can get LG88 next time to keep the pattern going.

Or sooner, sooner works too

[StrikerEZ]

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I think in the Kandra doc I mused about this... settled on AraRiice, I think  AraRaash admittedly has a better ring to it.

I did something like MarRiis or something in the writeup because AraRiice just felt...strange to me. Plus it’d be a little confusing with AraRaash also floating around out there.

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Or sooner, sooner works too

I mean, there’s a reason I run games in the summer. Don’t have much time to do it during the school year. I could maybe get a rerun of this game in just before the AG? But if I’m gonna do that, I’d rather do one of the other ideas I’ve got in the waitlist, and save this ruleset as a yearly event type thingy each summer. Or at least, every summer until I get too busy to keep doing it.

[Mat]

39 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I did something like MarRiis or something in the writeup because AraRiice just felt...strange to me. Plus it’d be a little confusing with AraRaash also floating around out there.

I mean, there’s a reason I run games in the summer. Don’t have much time to do it during the school year. I could maybe get a rerun of this game in just before the AG? But if I’m gonna do that, I’d rather do one of the other ideas I’ve got in the waitlist, and save this ruleset as a yearly event type thingy each summer. Or at least, every summer until I get too busy to keep doing it.

Well, yeah  It has food in it. MarRiis is a good Kandra name.

Yearly event is great!

[Araris Valerian]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Edit: And I hope @Araris Valerian forgives me for messing this up after he brilliantly set me up in such a good position. You did well.

I enjoyed having you as my successor . A little sad that we didn't win, but I definitely would pick you again. Unless, of course, I realized that Ash was elim, in which case I probably would have converted him just for laughs. Pulling off a SK victory is always pretty tough, but I think between the two of us we came closer than most other people have.

@StrikerEZ, this game was pretty awesome, so thanks for running it! I think the changes to the Kandra role were pretty great, and had a lot of fun trying to hunt out the elims and then betray the village. I look forward to the next LG you run!

Speaking of which, this game did feel quite different from pretty much any game I've played before. I had a pretty village mindset just about up until I died, at least on terms of needing to find elims, but normally I would do a massive analysis post and try to guess the elim team at that point. Instead, I ended up with a wishy-washy post about Mat that was supposed to stop people from killing him off once I converted him. Definitely enjoyed living quite long as a not-elim, even if I wasn't village.

[Ashbringer]

Okay, some rule thoughts (@StrikerEZ)

I really like the Revised Kandra (kill every cycle, can choose a successor even if they are killed by something other than their own ability, Araris getting to talk to Mat... that ability being RB proof and not overwriting Spikes is nice but I think those were in the old version, just didn't show up).

The only thing I'd think of adding would be to not letting either team win while the Kandra lives, to be a true SK - they'd still need to balance Elims and Villagers to win, but it would add a lot of pressure to the teams to actually worry about the Kandra (as it didn't really matter for us Elims whether Araris was the Kandra or a Coinshot). Or, potentially giving them a Charged Spike to start the game with that the successor could get.

For the roles... the Skimmer's almost objectively inferior to the Leecher. Really the only advantage to using Skimming is that it can't be detected by Seekers, and that's at a pretty big cost of a charging ability. I do like it more than LG66's Skimming, but something that lets it stand out (like tapping multiple charges to Roleblock multiple people) would be nice. Also a more unique storing thing would be nice. The Spinner still confuses me greatly, and is the only ability that seems much less powerful in-game than the canon Fortune-manipulating thing.

I was very surprised that the Investigator was actually in the game... I thought it was just a scary scary for the Elim team. Alignment scanners are dangerous, but they can work.

Hazekiller is objectively better than both the Leecher and the Skimmer. I like the role, and I like the expanded non-Invested roles and the expanded set of roleblockers, but something that lets the Leecher or Skimmer be better in a circumstance than the Hazekiller would be nice.

[Araris Valerian]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

The only thing I'd think of adding would be to not letting either team win while the Kandra lives, to be a true SK - they'd still need to balance Elims and Villagers to win, but it would add a lot of pressure to the teams to actually worry about the Kandra (as it didn't really matter for us Elims whether Araris was the Kandra or a Coinshot). Or, potentially giving them a Charged Spike to start the game with that the successor could get.

Yeah, this is something that crossed my mind as the game was close to ending. Everyone sort of wanted to avoid the Kandra, since the elims killing me would have slowed them down, and the village killing me would have caused them to lose.

[Mat]

(I, for one, didn’t mind the other players being able to ignore me at the end there, but it still probably would be a good change )

[StrikerEZ]

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

The only thing I'd think of adding would be to not letting either team win while the Kandra lives, to be a true SK - they'd still need to balance Elims and Villagers to win, but it would add a lot of pressure to the teams to actually worry about the Kandra (as it didn't really matter for us Elims whether Araris was the Kandra or a Coinshot). Or, potentially giving them a Charged Spike to start the game with that the successor could get.

The one thing I worry about with this is like...it would feel weird to me for the elims to not have won if it comes down to only elims and the Kandra left. Like, if there’s no village left at all, the elims should win. Maybe something where village can only win once all non-villagers are dead, and elims only when all villagers are dead? And the Kandra still wants to be the last player alive. This way I think the game could last longer and the Kandra has more incentive to keep some villagers alive while also being threatened by them.

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

For the roles... the Skimmer's almost objectively inferior to the Leecher. Really the only advantage to using Skimming is that it can't be detected by Seekers, and that's at a pretty big cost of a charging ability. I do like it more than LG66's Skimming, but something that lets it stand out (like tapping multiple charges to Roleblock multiple people) would be nice. Also a more unique storing thing would be nice. The Spinner still confuses me greatly, and is the only ability that seems much less powerful in-game than the canon Fortune-manipulating thing.

This is a good point about the Skimmer role, and wasn’t something I was thinking about before. I think having some sort of other tapping ability besides just a roleblock would work well. I don’t think roleblocking multiple people for the cost of one action makes sense, but I think doing something where it leaves someone unable to take any actions for a certain amount of turns would be interesting. I’ll think about this.

As for the Spinner, that’s definitely something I’ve already thought about. About halfway through the game, I already went ahead and started working on a v3 of these rules, and that was one of the first things I changed.

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I was very surprised that the Investigator was actually in the game... I thought it was just a scary scary for the Elim team. Alignment scanners are dangerous, but they can work.

I mean, I put in the Investigator because I made the elim team smaller, so the Investigator would have worse odds of finding an elim, and I gave the elims a Thug to basically make up for the fact that there were less of them because of the Investigator. Alignment scanners are dangerous yeah, but I don’t think they’re a huge detriment. Plus there was the Pulser, who could make the Investigator useless if they found out who it was.

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Hazekiller is objectively better than both the Leecher and the Skimmer. I like the role, and I like the expanded non-Invested roles and the expanded set of roleblockers, but something that lets the Leecher or Skimmer be better in a circumstance than the Hazekiller would be nice.

I think I’m a future run I’d make the Hazekiller a single action roleblock while the Leecher and Skimmer are total roleblocks.

Edited June 13, 2021 by StrikerEZ

[Ashbringer]

19 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

This is a good point about the Skimmer role, and wasn’t something I was thinking about before. I think having some sort of other tapping ability besides just a roleblock would work well. I don’t think roleblocking multiple people for the cost of one action makes sense, but I think doing something where it leaves someone unable to take any actions for a certain amount of turns would be interesting. I’ll think about this.

Maybe a tap x3 for a redirect instead of a roleblock? I don't know how... thematic it would be, though.

Oooh, what about tap x3 to roleblock all actions targeting self / a target player? Like... what the Firesoul does. Actually, that's exactly what the Firesoul does... would be cool though.

19 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

As for the Spinner, that’s definitely something I’ve already thought about. About halfway through the game, I already went ahead and started working on a v3 of these rules, and that was one of the first things I changed.

Maybe make it affect any RNG-based effect... like exe ties, tap a chromium charge to add a ~10% chance for it to break the way the Spinner wants it to... or let each charge have some % chance of something happening the way the Spinner wants it to. Like 3 charges for a 15% chance for any kills targetting X to be roleblocked... 

That wouldn't make it less complicated, but it sure would be more powerful 

19 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I mean, I put in the Investigator because I made the elim team smaller, so the Investigator would have worse odds of finding an elim, and I gave the elims a Thug to basically make up for the fact that there were less of them because of the Investigator. Alignment scanners are dangerous yeah, but I don’t think they’re a huge detriment. Plus there was the Pulser, who could make the Investigator useless if they found out who it was.

There was also a Skimmer who could make the Investigator useless if they found out who it was, thank you very much...

Smaller Elim team means less chance of the Investigator hitting an Elim, but it also means a bigger Village Circle if PMs are open and each Elim death hurts more. The Thug did help balance it more, though.

And it's also... kinda like the Skimmer/Leecher thing, the Investigator does for free every cycle what normally a Sparker has to slave away not voting for three cycles straight for. Sure, the Sparker can do a lot more with their charges than Alignment scan (role-scans are highly underrated in role madness games), but most people will still just save for that.

23 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I think I’m a future run I’d make the Hazekiller a single action roleblock while the Leecher and Skimmer are total roleblocks.

I like this. The Hazekiller's ability is on point flavorwise, it's just... it's not even too powerful, it's just slightly better than two other things.

27 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

The one thing I worry about with this is like...it would feel weird to me for the elims to not have won if it comes down to only elims and the Kandra left. Like, if there’s no village left at all, the elims should win. Maybe something where village can only win once all non-villagers are dead, and elims only when all villagers are dead? And the Kandra still wants to be the last player alive. This way I think the game could last longer and the Kandra has more incentive to keep some villagers alive while also being threatened by them.

I feel like in order to get to that point, though, either the Elims would have already figured out the new Kandra was among them, or the Kandra would have already vivisected most of the Elim team. It would be weird, but alignment changing in and of itself is weird, especially Elim-->Not!Elim. Plus the Elim team would know what had happened and the game would maybe go a cycle more. Especially since the Elims know each other's abilities and could probably do some tests to prove themselves, like we nearly did (except Bip couldn't prove anything and I was too proud of my proof which promptly puffed into Smoke).

This could work, though. I would perhaps add the caveat that the Elims can only win over the head of an Elim turned Kandra. Not over the original Kandra, not over a Villager turned Kandra. So the Elims have to kill everyone who isn't in their doc. (Or, probably reach vote-manip-adjusted-parity and have the Kandra dead or in the Elim doc.)

[Mat]

Aren’t Hazekillers the guys that are trained to kill Allomancers? Them being the strongest of the roleblock roles at least makes sense in that regard.

[---]

I should have trusted my read on Drake of him being good, but good thing it didnt matter since i was just spectating :P. Dont think i would have turned on Drake if i lived, so thats good :P. 

I seriously thought Drake was an elim because he completely backed off after the mat/bip cycle :P. I felt like that cycle proved mat/bip were teamed, partly because bip didnt self-pres onto mat.

I guess i know a bit more about Drake's playstle now? Part of what pinged me was how open he is with information. He publicly stated all his role reads and that felt way too comfortable. 

I think its funny how aligned Araris and some of the elims looked to me :P. He was evil, just not an elim haha

Anyways off to read the doc!

[StrikerEZ]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Maybe a tap x3 for a redirect instead of a roleblock? I don't know how... thematic it would be, though.

Oooh, what about tap x3 to roleblock all actions targeting self / a target player? Like... what the Firesoul does. Actually, that's exactly what the Firesoul does... would be cool though.

I think what I'm going to do is some sort of ability where you if you have 3 charges stored up, if someone targets you you reflexively tap x3 and Injure that player, which means they get roleblocked the turn they targeted you and the next turn. Or something like this.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Maybe make it affect any RNG-based effect... like exe ties, tap a chromium charge to add a ~10% chance for it to break the way the Spinner wants it to... or let each charge have some % chance of something happening the way the Spinner wants it to. Like 3 charges for a 15% chance for any kills targetting X to be roleblocked... 

That wouldn't make it less complicated, but it sure would be more powerful 

Oh yeah, this is definitely what I was meaning for the role to be, but I just...didn't really write it that way the first time for some reason?

Anyway, I've changed it for the version 3 rules. I don't think I've gone through and thought about the math for each and every RNG interaction, but I've outlined the basics. And most of the specifics won't be in the role description anyway because that would probably be nearly an entire page's worth of rules for one role.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

There was also a Skimmer who could make the Investigator useless if they found out who it was, thank you very much...

...sorry

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Smaller Elim team means less chance of the Investigator hitting an Elim, but it also means a bigger Village Circle if PMs are open and each Elim death hurts more. The Thug did help balance it more, though.

And it's also... kinda like the Skimmer/Leecher thing, the Investigator does for free every cycle what normally a Sparker has to slave away not voting for three cycles straight for. Sure, the Sparker can do a lot more with their charges than Alignment scan (role-scans are highly underrated in role madness games), but most people will still just save for that.

Hmm...I could make the Investigator have a set number of scans per game? Or maybe make it an every other cycle thing? That interaction between the Sparker and the Investigator isn't something I'd thought about before. The thing with the Sparker is like...that's usually a role where they've got another role to use as well. Like, most people have two roles to mess with, which is why some of the feruchemical roles can take a bit to stock up on charges. I probably gave too many people just one role this time around, honestly.

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I feel like in order to get to that point, though, either the Elims would have already figured out the new Kandra was among them, or the Kandra would have already vivisected most of the Elim team. It would be weird, but alignment changing in and of itself is weird, especially Elim-->Not!Elim. Plus the Elim team would know what had happened and the game would maybe go a cycle more. Especially since the Elims know each other's abilities and could probably do some tests to prove themselves, like we nearly did (except Bip couldn't prove anything and I was too proud of my proof which promptly puffed into Smoke).

This could work, though. I would perhaps add the caveat that the Elims can only win over the head of an Elim turned Kandra. Not over the original Kandra, not over a Villager turned Kandra. So the Elims have to kill everyone who isn't in their doc. (Or, probably reach vote-manip-adjusted-parity and have the Kandra dead or in the Elim doc.)

Hmmm. These are some good points. I'll definitely be thinking about this between this run and the next run. Keep in mind, the Kandra rules are changing again before the third run of this game. Can't have a secret of the game revealed before the game even starts.

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Aren’t Hazekillers the guys that are trained to kill Allomancers? Them being the strongest of the roleblock roles at least makes sense in that regard.

Yeah, this is definitely a good point. I think after you've mentioned this, I'm fine with leaving Hazekillers as they are.

[danex]

I just wish Exp hadn’t died D1

took out the most powerful villager role and all PMs in one swoop.

maybe don’t give both of those roles to a single person next time 

[StrikerEZ]

17 minutes ago, Dannex said:

 

I just wish Exp hadn’t died D1

took out the most powerful villager role and all PMs in one swoop.

maybe don’t give both of those roles to a single person next time 

 

Well, in my defense, I didn’t think they’d get exed literally D1.

EDIT: Someone say something because I realized I forgot to respond to one of Araris’s posts.

Edited June 14, 2021 by StrikerEZ

[---]

Smhsmh

Edit: clarifying this ia a post to be a post tbh

Edited June 14, 2021 by Illwei

[Araris Valerian]

2 hours ago, Illwei said:

I think its funny how aligned Araris and some of the elims looked to me :P. He was evil, just not an elim haha

Yeah, I was pretty surprised about that. I was honestly trying to find the elims prior to your joining, so I guess I was just doing a bad job of it .

[StrikerEZ]

7 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

@StrikerEZ, this game was pretty awesome, so thanks for running it! I think the changes to the Kandra role were pretty great, and had a lot of fun trying to hunt out the elims and then betray the village. I look forward to the next LG you run!

I'm glad you had a lot of fun playing this game! For those who haven't read the Kandra doc yet, Araris ended up getting Kandra again 2/6 times, so we just had to give it to him again since it was so funny.

And I'm really glad that you liked the game. I'm excited to run the literal next LG, LG78, with @Biplet! It's gonna be a Legend of Zelda game.

[danex]

56 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

It's gonna be a Legend of Zelda game.

Please have the village faction be a group of Bokoblins and the Elims is Link wearing Majoras Mask. XD

[StrikerEZ]

10 minutes ago, Dannex said:

Please have the village faction be a group of Bokoblins and the Elims is Link wearing Majoras Mask. XD

.....time to get another non-Sanderson pass. 

[|TJ|]

Hey hey, good game elims and Araris! I was hoping I'd get Coinshot again, but alas, Striker decided to do away with the role :P. Happy to be right about Ash and Bip :P. Just wish I hadn't been voted out. Also, fun fact. This is the earliest I have died in an LG. I wasn't killed before N2 until now

Thanks for running the game, Striker and Bard! Hope I'll be graced with the kandra in the next rerun

[StrikerEZ]

14 hours ago, |TJ| said:

Thanks for running the game, Striker and Bard! Hope I'll be graced with the kandra in the next rerun

You're welcome for running it! And you never know. You do have a tendency to get neutral roles.

[Archer]

Wowza! Good game, all. 

On 13/06/2021 at 0:54 PM, Matrim's Dice said:

Man, I don't even know how to feel about this  I actually am kicking myself really really really hard because I was dumb and used the elim kill to try to kill Ash last night and not the kandra kill for some reason. I... don't know why. I'm decently annoyed about that but it's no one's fault and there's nothing I can do now :P. The fact that neither of Drake or Archer were Thugs makes it arguably worse but ah well.

This game was really fun, before I was converted and after. I probably have more thoughts but they're also probably in my doc(s).

I'm pretty sure you thinking I was a Thug is the sole reason I survived the game. So thank you! :P. 

By the way, I was assuming you were the kandra based on Araris' wishy washy ISO of you. Had an elim died that night, making it 3v:2e:1k, I would have advocated for killing the elim first with the exe, which I think would have ended the game. Ash might have been able to Soothe out another hammer, but with Smoking in play, it probably would have led to a village win. 

Also, from now on you'll never be able to pocket me because if you ever trust me too much again, my hackles are gonna raise

On 13/06/2021 at 1:12 PM, StrikerEZ said:

 

@Archer Thanks for making a really fun character to work with, I hope you appreciate what I did with them in the writeup. It was always really funny seeing you RP with them

I read the writeup at 11pm in a mall parking lot and screamed what the heck?! when I got to the Panini part. It was a wonderfully cold showdown involving a ventriloquist dummy and I loved it. I wish this game had been three months earlier, when I was in school and had time for more RPing. Turns out working most of the day makes it hard to do my usual playstyle. I think saying something, anything, frequently is probably more important than making sure it's super polished, so going forward I'm going to try to lean more concise in the analysis so I have time to also throw in some RP.

Some game notes:

-Sentry seemed balanced. I never used it, and I probably would have disliked the no PMing at night thing more if I could have PMed, but it was a pretty good power that incentived getting a kill protect and acting as killbait, or thiefbait. And it was nice that the vote cancelling had some use too, counterintuitively

-Smoker was also fine, even if I thought it could block redirects originally. Not sure why I thought it worked like that, but once I got going, they were two good low power abilities 

-I don't think the Blackmarket was used as effectively as it could have been. I'm not sure if people made less money than you expected or what, but it felt like it only was relevant at the end

-It'd be cool if the Coinshot kill had a boxing cost to use. Like 10 or so

On 13/06/2021 at 1:31 PM, DrakeMarshall said:

Wait wait wait what

I was sure the game could not end today lol

Why the Kandra kill no hit an eliminator

Come the worst I planned I’d still have two actions and the wherewithal to possibly both sieze control of an elim vote manip and deploy my own vote manip

Well, this is awkward  @Archer I’m sorry I did not use an item last turn which was a mistake but I did not expect this whoops

It's all good. There were a few late-game mistakes that could have changed the outcome:

-TUO acted elimy enough to attract village votes to their mix (having no opinion looks like an elim who can't come up with reasonable suspicions to pretend to have. Especially when e!Lotus used the same playbook) 

-Drake was off about Biplet and didn't redirect

-Dannex didn't reveal Szeth's alignment immediately, which would have pointed to Biplet as the third elim and consolidated the village vote

-Szeth didn't vote to protect themselves

-And I misunderstood thale kandra wincon; I thought they needed to survive until the village or elims won, not be the last one standing

But that's how it goes sometimes. I think we generally did pretty well. Maybe if Mat had died instead of Bip in that tie, this game would have gone an extra couple of rounds and had a different result. Same with if there'd been PMs or different roles survived. And if Araris had been good instead of a sneaky kandra. :P. That's how the dice roll.

By the way, why didn't you consider me being Smoker an option when you tried to guess what it was? 

19 hours ago, Illwei said:

I seriously thought Drake was an elim because he completely backed off after the mat/bip cycle :P. I felt like that cycle proved mat/bip were teamed, partly because bip didnt self-pres onto mat.

You being certain Drake was evil in the dead doc was awesome to read XD. 

 

Thanks for a good game, everyone. Young Bard, I'm glad you were on hand to keep lover boy's books in order. It looked like a complex game to run, and you both did well managing it. 

[StrikerEZ]

15 minutes ago, Archer said:

Thanks for a good game, everyone. Young Bard, I'm glad you were on hand to keep lover boy's books in order. It looked like a complex game to run, and you both did well managing it. 

What’s that mean?

And yeah, Bard definitely helped a whole bunch. And I’m glad you enjoyed your part in the wrtiteup. I had a lot of fun coming up with that but since you and Ash blackmailed each other into targetin yourselves.

[---]

Oh right, also.

I dont know what the general rules are about this, but my predecessor's PM with Mat was news to me upon readin the Elim doc. 

I think i should have atleast recieved received screenshots, if not been added to any PMs that the person i replaced had.